Although highly skilled operators can frequently copy one turned workpiece with another, the copying has minor inaccuracies, and a less skilled operator often has difficulty in making two products look similar, yet it is quite important in many applications that they should have similar appearance, for example the stanchions of a banister or staircase rail.
These problems have been recognised and the reader's attention is directed to the U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,768,527 (Messick) and 4,256,155 (Hochstatter et al). The Messick disclosure shows a flat plate arranged to be secured to a flat lathe bed and to have on it a freely movable tool, the base plate having a first arm that supports a pattern follower and a second arm which supports a second cutting tool above and in vertical alignment therewith. However there is an inherent difficulty in the use of such a tool, in that it is limited to a "short toe", and should the tool "dig in" to the workpiece, it will tend to both tilt about the toe of the base plate and also bend the base plate and column, and a workpiece can be damaged by such an occurrence.
The main object of this invention is to overcome such problems and in this invention the pattern, or template, is supported on surfaces which place it above the bed of the lathe, and the base of the tool holder has its toe projecting forwardly beyond the follower guide and beneath the template.